“Cloud computing” is a term used to identify the delivery of computing requirements as a service to a heterogeneous community of end-recipients. The term cloud theoretically signifies abstraction of technology, resources and locations that are used in building an integrated computing infrastructure (including networks, systems, applications, etc.). All Cloud computing models rely heavily on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale similar to a utility (like a grid for electricity) over a network.
Cloud computing provides services with a user's data, software and computation on over multiple networks. End users access cloud based applications through a web browser or a light weight desktop or mobile application while the rest of the application software and data are stored on servers at remote locations. Cloud computing provides a same or better service and performance with cloud software programs as if al the cloud software programs were actually installed locally on end-user devices.
At the foundation of cloud computing is the broader concept of infrastructure convergence and shared services. This type of cloud computing environment allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with easier manageability and less maintenance, and enables the enterprise to more rapidly adjust resources (such as servers, storage, and networking) to meet fluctuating and unpredictable business demand.
“Peer-to-peer (P2P)” computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application. They are said to form a peer-to-peer network of nodes.
Peers make a portion of their resources, such as processing power, disk storage or network bandwidth, directly available to other network participants, without the need for central coordination by servers or stable hosts. Peers are both suppliers and consumers of resources, in contrast to the traditional client-server model in which the consumption and supply of resources is divided.
Emerging collaborative P2P systems are going beyond the era of peers doing similar things while sharing resources, and are looking for diverse peers that can bring in unique resources and capabilities to a virtual community thereby empowering it to engage in greater tasks beyond those that can be accomplished by individual peers, yet that are beneficial to all the peers.
A “blockchain” is a public ledger of all transactions that have ever been executed. It is constantly growing as completed “blocks” are added to it with a new set of recordings. The blocks are added to the blockchain in a linear, chronological order. Blockchains are used on P2P networks and other networks. Each P2P node gets a copy of the blockchain, which gets downloaded automatically upon joining P2P. The blockchain has complete information about the block owners and block content right from the first block to the most recently completed block.
The blockchain is seen as the main technical innovation of the cryptocurrency BITCOIN, where it serves as a public ledger of all BITCOIN transactions. BITCOIN is P2P; every user is allowed to connect to the network, send new transactions to it, verify transactions, and create new blocks, which is why it is called “permissionless.”
However, there are a number of problems associated with electronic content storage and retrieval on cloud computing network.
One problem is how to efficiently store and retrieve electronic content on cloud computing networks.
Another problem is providing proper privacy and security for electronic content stored and retrieved on cloud computing networks.
Another problem is information entropy including information gain and mutual information of information stored on cloud computing networks.
Another problem is storing plaintext on a cloud computing networks without encrypting the plaintext and providing various levels of security and privacy for the plaintext.
Another problem is where to store and retrieve electronic content on a cloud computing network.
Another problem is how and where blockchains can be safely and securely stored and retrieved on a communications network.
Thus, it is desirable to solve some of the problems associated with content storage and retrieval with cloud computing networks.